Blood Bowl - 'Ere We Go
by NickWraye
Summary: The Orctown Oldboyz - not the greatest Blood Bowl team in the Auld World, but certainly one of the more violent - are back. And now, thanks to their suspiciously elfy new owner, they're heading to Sylvania, home to Vampire Counts and undead beasts, to play in a cup where dark deeds are afoot. Murder, and possibly unregulated cheating.
1. Chapter 1

Friends of Lady Trembelle Seult tended to say that she had 'one of those faces'. One of those faces, to be more specific, that had made Count Victor Von Carstein become utterly mad with his love for her, spending five hundred-and-twenty years of his undead life living as a hermit in the Wraythsdoum peaks before finally throwing himself off the cliffs into the raging torrent below. One of those faces that had been responsible for so many duels amongst the younger male vampires at the Strigoi Academy – Trembelle invariably shaking her head in irritation at the sight of such posturing, and retiring to the library to read about caging techniques – that a permanent pile of ash developed in the university's barren quadrangle and was eventually used by the groundsman to fertilise his roses.

One of those faces, to be brief about it, that was pale, and sweet, and had the darkest of smiles lingering about it. A face, if you wanted to be poetic, that would make the fiercest hunter of the walking dead plunge a stake into his own heart rather than harm a snow-white hair on her head.

Currently, however, this same face was marked by a severe frown as Trembelle leant forward, jabbed a slender finger into the tablecloth, and snapped,

"What do you mean, you don't get it? It's not hard. Look, I'll explain it again."

She shifted the pepper pot forward. Salt-shaker back. Various glasses and items of cutlery, jammed point first into the wood, formed complex patterns over the table. Her dinner companion, a nervous, balding vampire by the name of Sebastian Vraiklitz, made a sort of harrumphing noise designed to indicate, as politely as possible, that perhaps, if she really didn't, um, mind, it might be the right time to introduce a new topic of conversation.

Trembelle, completely failing to pick up on this, continued,

"Eleven players on each team. Some are built for hitting, others for running, some for throwing…and one ball. This, er, napkin clasp. One team kicks into the other team's half, and whoever gets their hands on the ball has to run it into the opposition's endzone, as marked by the edge of the table. So far, so simple."

"So, um, simple," Sebastian murmured.

A waiter lurched forth out of the shadows of the restaurant and attempted to fill the wine glasses with a thick crimson liquid. Trembelle waved him away.

"Not now, dammit," she snarled, "we're using them. So – let's try to imagine the opposition have the ball. You can hit them at any time, any place – as long as they're on their feet. If you foul them on the ground, you're liable to get sent off. If you can knock down the ball-carrier, you're on the right track. But his team-mates will be trying to keep him protected. So what do you do? How do you stop his progress, while watching every gap in your defence in case he passes, even defending yourself against attacks from all sides?"

Sebastian gazed down at the debris scattered across the tablecloth. He was certain he'd heard a couple of giggles from one of the other booths, shrouded in darkness. Why the hells hadn't anyone told him that Trembelle Seult was a sports nut?

"I really, um, couldn't say," he managed. "I, um, hear Lady Genevieve is having a masked ball tonight in Middenheim – perhaps we could, ah, fly over and attend, um, together-"

Trembelle let out a short, bestial snarl.

"You're hopeless," she said. "Where's the bloody maitre'd?"

Sebastian, remembering his cue, began to snap his fingers and gaze vaguely around over his right shoulder.

After a few seconds, the waiter limped back out of the shadows. He was a very respectable-looking old zombie, his last few white hairs slicked back into a delicate-looking widow's peak.

"Sir?" he asked. "Ma'am?"

Trembelle gestured at her creation.

"What's that?" she said, sweetly.

The waiter stared sombrely down.

"That would be the Tomolandry Third Defensive Manoeuvre, ma'am," he replied.

Trembelle chuckled to herself and clapped her hands together.

"Bravo," she said. "Honestly, Sebastian – how can you not get this?"

Sebastian smiled, weakly.

"I'm, ah, afraid I don't really see the appeal," he murmured. "And you say…mortals die in the service of this sport?"

"Oh, not just mortals," Trembelle said, delightedly running down names on her fingers. "Pieter Von Draf was killed in '61 – took an orc's boot to the face. Then there was Duke Henri Essentrot in the infamous Three-Ogre Crunch of '84, Alain Gerbarcht, impaled on his own teammate's helmet…"

"Eriss Von Carstein," said the waiter, "choked on the ball, '86."

Sebastian glared at him until he shambled back into the darkness.

"You see," he said, eventually, "this is what I simply cannot, um, get my head around. People die…in service of a sport. They allow themselves to lose their very, ah, immortality…for the sake of something as trivial as a game. Does that not seem, um, wasteful to you?"

Trembelle gave him a funny look. Over the centuries, she'd seen her brethren and mortals alike toss away their lives for the sake of wars fought over some pathetic, worthless scrap of land, over petty political positions - even for the love of another creature who rarely deserved the sacrifice. As far as she was concerned, there were few better ways to die in this peculiar old world than in attempting to make the tricky Reikland Punch-Leap-Catch double-switch.

"Yes," she said. "Wasteful. I expect you're probably right. Shall we get the bill? That amuse bouche filled me right up."


	2. Chapter 2

As they reached the gates of the Seult keep, tendrils of dawn mist already coiling about the town square, he tried his luck with a bad line about how, um, tasty she looked.

Trembelle slammed the heavy oak doors in his face.

"Ugh," she muttered to herself, turning away. "And his breath smelt of onions and intestinal tract."

She strolled through the castle gardens, nodding absent-mindedly to the hunched, shambling groundsghouls that tended to her herbs. Finally, noting the first rays of sunrise pressing out through the grey clouds, she ducked in through the old stone archway and climbed the stairs to her chambers, pushing the door open.

A hundred faces, puckered with anger, exhaustion and pain, glared down at her.

Trembelle had spent quite a large amount of her considerable fortune on acquiring posters of legendary Blood Bowl players from across the Auld World. Morg 'N' Thorg, the ogre's own illegible signature scrawled across his face, occupied an entire wall. Then there was Scrappa Sorehead, caught in the famous cowering pose as an enormous boot threatened to snap down on him, and the signed ball, on its place of pride on her bedstand, from the '97 match when Rintik The Unstoppable threw the winning pass by lobbing it so hard it decapitated all three of the skeletons who were blocking her.

She flopped down onto the four-poster bed and closed her eyes. What was that match she'd seen again, while flicking through some of the most obscure Cabalvision channels late one night? Fester Match Special, Channel 3419. The all-Halfling Bunglewood Blunderers against an orc team. Quite a decent orc team, in fact. All dressed in blue and black, with a welcome (albeit thoroughly unexpected) tendency to go for the ball while maintaining the time-honoured philosophy of hitting everything within arm's reach. The Blunderers had lost, of course, after a spectacular play involving sections of Griff's Double-Bluff, three linemen and the mangled remains of an opposite player. Quite impressive, really.

And then – how could she have forgotten about it until now? - there was the ticket. The ticket, and she reached out her hand instinctively to check that it was still lying on her bedside table. Just a simple rectangle of white card, with the inscription handwritten in silver ink.

_Count Otto Vandryver presents: The Vandryver All-Star Charity Cup. All Proceeds Will Go To The Otto Vandryver Foundation._

_Admit One._

Just another four weeks, she told herself. Just another four weeks until it starts.

Beneath her breath, the first wafts of weariness creeping over her, Trembelle began to hum, the words coming to her as readily as the nursery rhymes her father whispered into her ear two centuries ago-

"'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go…"


	3. Chapter 3

Edwyrd Kettlebelly, coach of the Orctown Oldboyz, was shouting. This was partly because he was a dwarf, and the Oldboyz were orcs; and if you were going to try and give instructions from a height of three feet to a collection of seven-foot monsters with the attention-span and propensity towards violence of a nine-year-old boy in a munitions factory, you really did need to learn how to shout. But mostly it was because he was extremely annoyed.

"One more time," he snapped. "When the match is over, you surround the opposition team on either side in a 'tunnel' as they walk off the pitch and…"

The Oldboyz stared at him blankly.

"…and you applaud them," Edwyrd said. "You clap your hands together to show your appreciation for the way they played the game. You don't, repeat, don't, take advantage of your superior positioning to yell 'Waaaagh' and beat them to death. Isn't that right, Wazguttle?"

The enormous Black Orc who served as the Oldboyz' captain removed his helmet, and scratched bashfully at the little shock of dark hair at the very top of his green skull.

"Dey wuz only elves, kotch," he said.

"Even elves deserve our respect," Edwyrd snarled, then reluctantly corrected himself. "On the Blood Bowl pitch, at least, where they're fellow players and certainly not _toffee-nosed pointy-eared tree-worshipping weirdo_s or anything like that. And now the four surviving members of the Fendten Flowerpickers are saying they want to cancel their next game against us. Is this the image we want to project? I mean, really?"

The Oldboyz, gazes lowered, kicked at the dirt and mumbled vague apologies. They'd always been fond of their coach. But they did occasionally wish that he wouldn't try quite so hard to teach them silly, unnecessary things like 'good sportsmanship' and 'fair play' and 'basic tactics'.

From the bent and broken wooden stands of Old Ghoul's Green, a couple of fans, dressed in the team's traditional blue and black colours, had lingered on to listen to the coach give the team a good old-fashioned yell.

Cressida D'Stanlie, runner and token human of the team, raised her hand. Her pretty face, stained with mud, blood, shards of bone, and the lucky green warpaint she applied before every game, broke into a pleading smile.

"Oh, come on, coach," she said. "When Badpipes threw that elf over the stand, I thought I'd die of laughter."

There were a few appreciative chuckles from the orcs. Badpipes, team troll and immovable lump, failed to respond to the mention of his name. Instead, rheumy eyes gazing into the middle distance, he inserted one giant finger into his nose and began to pick.

Edwyrd held back the slightly malevolent grin that was threatening to spread across his face.

"Not funny," he said. "Not funny at all. And Grobb, I saw you trying to pull that elf's leg off while he was on the ground. He could press disciplinary action against you. How do you think you could modify your behaviour to avoid this sort of thing in future?"

Grobb, a lank, apish orc, furrowed his brow for a moment.

"…kill 'im proper?" he suggested.

Edwyrd gave up.

"Two laps of the pitch, all of you," he said, "then head in and hit the showers. Go on, get out of here. But don't think you've heard the last of this."

The Oldboyz, grumbling and shoving amongst themselves, turned and began to lumber away across the pitch. Badpipes remained sat on the grass, his finger working furiously, gloriously unaware of the world around him.

Edwyrd turned, strolled to the very edge of the stands and stood there in silence for some time.

Finally, he said,

"Bugger this, Fourtooth."

Fourtooth, Bright Wizard, amiable lunatic, and team apothecary, perched his pipe neatly between his remaining, blackened teeth and replied,

"They were only _elves_, coach."

"That's not the point," Edwyrd snapped. "One day it's only elves, the next it's only humans. Before you know it we've wiped out half of the local population. We're rotting away here in the lower leagues, Fourtooth. Half the division's teams don't want to play us any more." He sighed. "We need to get away from here. Get the cameras on us, bring a few more fans in to fill the seats. Why hasn't Bruckheim entered us for any cups, any leagues? That's what I want to know - the season started a bloody fortnight ago and we haven't heard a peep out of him. Something must be up. It just has to be."

"Ah," Fourtooth mumbled sagely, striking a match, "he'll have something up his sleeve, he will. Old Bruckheim's a good owner. He's never steered us wrong before."

He hesitated, considering.

"Well," he conceded, "apart from that time he sent us on a four-hundred mile trek to that league in Albion that turned out to be for giants only. And the time he sold us to those Lustrian slavers. And-"

Edwyrd sighed again. Across the pitch, the Oldboyz had already abandoned their warm-down jog in favour of beating the living snot out of one another. Wazguttle had caught hold of Dok McKlowd – a perpetually cheerful, stunted shaman whose home-made jetpack's tendency to explode violently was a constant cause of delight amongst the fans - by the head and was swinging the little orc around and around. Luggen, an aged and leathery blitzer, veteran of several better-known teams over the years, was busy kicking one of his teammates and closest friends repeatedly in the groin.

Something cold, scarlet and scaly brushed past Edwyrd's leg at high speed. Squiggie, team mascot and voracious, all-consuming monster, bounced delightedly past him, making for the fight. A cry of,

"Me leg! 'E's eatin' me leg! Right, ya big red grot, lessee 'ow yer likes it when I eats _yoor_ leg!"

could suddenly be heard.

Fourtooth patted Edwyrd consolingly on the top of his head.

"Come on, coach," he said. "Let's leave 'em to their fun and go have a nice cool pint in the Alteration."


	4. Chapter 4

The Alteration of Feeble Anatomies was a quiet, atmospheric pub at the edge of town run by the Brewery Of The Dark And fickle God Tzeentch; as a result, the benefits of the old-fashioned ambience, welcoming clientele and working dartboard were only slightly tempered by the constant possibility of your suddenly mutating into something strange and new.

A few pale worshippers of Chaos glanced dully up as they entered. The proprietor, a twisted and shapeless mass of tormented flesh wrapped up in a brown suit, gave Edwyrd a sympathetic gaze.

"Why the face?" it asked.

"Don't mind my friend," said Fourtooth, pushing forward. "It's been a long day. Two pints of Bugman's, please?"

They took their seats at the bar, between a depressed-looking Minotaur and a goblin who kept falling forward into his own pint of bitter and giggling hilariously about it. On the small Cabalvision set above, the Skavenblight Scramblers appeared to be losing rather horribly to the Champions of Death.

Edwyrd glanced out towards the intricately-carved window. The sun was already beginning to go down. He sighed.

He'd always wanted to be a Blood Bowl coach. And now that he was, it kept occurring to him that, just possibly, what he'd really wanted was to be an incredibly successful Blood Bowl coach with money and fame and his very own underground fortress with lava flowing down from the walls.

He'd told himself when he started, if this doesn't work out, then you can always move on. With the death rate being what it is, there are plenty of other teams looking for new coaches.

But you just got so attached to the big green morons. There was something very appealing, even charming, about their utter lack of guile. If they thought something, they said it. And if they weren't thinking anything at all, which was quite often, they went quiet for a little while until it was time to punch something again. None of them ever requested higher pay, or tried to move to another team, because they were paid in pebbles and many of them seemed to genuinely have no idea that you could join another team.

And they liked him. These giant, mindless monsters, who'd been responsible for the deaths of so many of his kin in countless wars across the Auld World, genuinely seemed to like him. He'd coached a dwarf team for a while, back home in Kratek, and every time he'd suggested, just maybe, that they should try to lose a little weight so they could run faster, they glared at him and told him that his beard was too short.

"Just a quick one," he said. "Training tomorrow, and that Skaven match the day after. Somebody has to show a little self-discipline on this bloody team if we're ever going to get anywhere."

But then, he thought, wasn't that what Dad always said, when I told him I was going to be a Blood Bowl coach? 'You'll end up babysitting a bunch of morons, my boy. You wait and see.'

He was always a little disappointed in me.

Edwyrd took a breath, lifted his flagon to his lips, and drained it.

Fourtooth gave him a look.

"Ah," he said. "Didn't realise that was what you meant by a 'quick one'."

Edwyrd banged it down on the bar, smacked his lips, and gestured to the barman.

"Another, please?" he asked.


	5. Chapter 5

The Hasilhof clocktower struck two in the morning. Bats scrittered through the low, wind-swept hills above the little town. Even here, in the heart of the Empire, great unnatural beasts were known to stalk the nocturnal lands hunting for prey. Nobody in their right mind would be out at this time of night.

"…'ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go…"

"Never - whoops, who put that bloody great menhir there? - never understood that song."

"Hmm?"

"Well, y'know…what are we doing, ere we go? Never gets to the end of the sentence."

"Ha! 'Snot ere we go, you twit, it's - 'ere we go. Here we go. 'S in the Orcy accent. What do they call it? Orkney? You know. It's - oh, bugger, I'm going down-"

Edwyrd fell over with his arms spread. For a moment, he simply lay back in the grass, gazing drunkenly up at the moon. Then the naturally spherical shape of his dwarven body took hold, and he began to roll slowly back down the hill, unresisting. It was quite a pleasant sensation, really, until he came to an abrupt halt against a pointy rock.

Fourtooth strolled after him, puffing thoughtfully away on his pipe.

"Y'know," he said, hitching up his robes and crouching down – wobbling a little in the process – beside the dwarf, "y'know, I think everything's gonna be all right, coach. Bruckheim'll get us in some good leagues. Good leagues, 'n' good cash, 'n' gorgeous groupie lasses rubbing up and down my-"

He frowned, and raised a hand to his forehead. A curious tremor; a ripple of mental force, striking off against the cliffs of his arcane mind.

"As I was saying," he mumbled, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge something. "These gorgeous groupie lasses, caressing my-"

He flinched. And then, all at once, he shrieked, his outstretched limbs convulsing as a wave of psychic pain shot through to his very core.

His eyes aflame, Fourtooth howled unnaturally, his feet lifting slowly off the ground, gazing at horrors beyond any ordinary man's sight.

"Wassamatter?" Edwyrd sniggered, lying prone on his side in the grass. "Youhumanscan'ttakeyourdrinkeh?."

Fourtooth wailed, in a voice that was somehow deeper than his, the echo of a thousand voices, a thousand different consciousnesses making themselves known through a single tongue,

"THEY'RE COMING. I CAN SEE THEIR FACES. SIGMAR HELP ME, I CAN SEE THEIR FACES."

Edwyrd sat bolt upright.

"Who?" he said, in a voice that was suddenly very sober and rather frightened. "Oh, ancestors…have the ravening undead armies of Khemri risen once again to conquer our helpless lands?"

Fourtooth simply shook his head, a single tear of pure agony trailing down his cheek and into his orange beard.

Edwyrd tried again.

"What, so the rotting legions of Nurgle, foul god of pestilence and decay, have set their sights on our little town, perhaps in order to claim an ancient secret, buried deep below-"

"WORSE," Fourtooth wailed. "MUCH, MUCH WORSE."

"A black dragon with four heads, only instead of the fourth head it's a sort of spiky…" Edwyrd began.

"LAWYERS," screamed Fourtooth, raising his head to the night sky. "LAWYERS ARE COMING. SIGMAR HAVE MERCY, LAWYERS ARE COMING."

Arcane flame streamed outwards from his twisted hands, burning into the night sky.

And then, his body going limp in an instant, he collapsed forward onto the grass and began, very slowly, to inch inwards into the foetal position, sobbing as he went.

Edwyrd, very carefully, got to his feet and gazed out over the lights of Hasilhof.

"Lawyers, eh?" he said, under his breath. "We'd better keep this to ourselves. Don't want to cause a panic."


	6. Chapter 6

The news spread, nonetheless, through the warnings of frightened and suddenly penniless travellers on the road, and when the gossip reached Hasilhof, the little town was lost to a day of thoughtless, frenzied collective terror.

_Lawyers! _

Farmers bolted their windows and boarded up their doors from within, locking their families in the basements and leaving a small plate of money outside in the hope of avoiding any kind of solicitation or - worse still - subpoena.

_Lawyers! _

The local priest set his chapel alight, dousing himself in oil and burning alive within, shrieking curses upon the souls of every single one of his parishioners before he died.

_Lawyers! _

A hero on a white steed rode into the town square and made a stirring speech about his plan to vanquish the mortal threat and save the lives of every man, woman and child in danger. Having collected some small charitable donations from the grateful populace, he rode back out of the town square and was never seen again.

_Lawyers! _

The Bucking Kroxigor which was usually kept chained up in the beer garden of Bugman's Arms gnawed its way loose, losing several teeth in the process, and fled out into the fields, shedding its skin and an entire five-foot tail apparently out of nothing more than sheer panic.

_Lawyers!_


	7. Chapter 7

As it turned out, there was only one lawyer; a softly-spoken, curl-horned beastman in black robes by the name of Libe'lgor, who wore half-moon spectacles, drank gin-and-tonics-with-too-much-tonic, and clasped his hooves patronisingly together when he spoke.

"It is," he brayed, slowly and patiently, "a rather delicate matter, I'm afraid. And it involves your team's owner, Mr Leopold Ratzerg Bruckheim."

"Oh, for Sigmar's sake," Fourtooth said, throwing up his arms and spilling his pint. "You might as well tell us - what's he done now? You know, that bastard's really beginning to get my goat."

Libe'lgor gave him a look.

"Um," Fourtooth added, "…sorry."

"No offence taken whatsoever," Libe'lgor said. "In any case, it is not so much an issue of what Mr Bruckheim has done as…where he has ended up. You see, earlier this year my partners and I at Slandri'gor, Libe'lgor and Slandri'gor helped him broker a business arrangement with a certain daemon of Tzeentch, a fine fellow by the name of Grazsi-That-Shalt-Not-Be-Trusted."

"Always a good start," Edwyrd muttered, not quite under his breath.

"The arrangement," said Libe'lgor, removing a sheet of paper from his neat little suitcase with an air of relish, "was a complex one, with – I flatter myself - a number of particularly delicious sub-clauses, loopholes and RDBs."

"RDBs?"

"Really Dodgy Bits."

"Ah."

"Suffice to say," Libe'lgor continued, "that Mr Bruckheim willingly passed over legal ownership of your team, the, ah, Orctown Oldboyz, as well as his estates in Altdorf and his wife Petrice, to Grazsi-Who-Shalt-Not-Be-Trusted, in exchange for, and I quote him, 'the power of flight and the ability to harm my enemies unseen and unnoticed', which," and here he chuckled gently to himself, "as you can imagine, Grazsi-Who-Shalt-Not-Be-Trusted supplied via the humorous twist of turning Mr Bruckheim into a gnat, which was then immediately consumed by a passing starling."

"Right," Edwyrd said, tugging at his beard. "Yeah. Listen, I know Mr Bruckheim's never been the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but are we really supposed to believe that he chose to make a business arrangement with a legendarily manipulative fiend of the Warp who went by the name of '_Grazsi-Who-Shalt-Not-Be-Trusted_'?"

"If you'll look closely," Libe'lgor said, passing the contract over the table, "you'll note that my client used an abbreviated form of his name - for the purposes of keeping the agreement within the page margins."

"What abbreviated form?" Fourtooth asked, peering curiously.

"Grazsi-Who-Shalt-Be-Trusted."

"Ah."

Edwyrd stared down at the first paragraph of the elegantly-printed, multiple-sub-claused contract. It was entirely incomprehensible to him. He supposed that was the point.

"So you're saying we're now owned by this monster?" he asked, and began to get excited again. "A cunning daemon of Tzeentch? A foul and vicious monster, which will no doubt attempt to use us as unwitting pawns in its own terrible plans for global dominion?"

Libe'lgor gave an embarrassed little cough.

"Not exactly," he said. "Shortly after the deal concluded, Grazsi began to indulge in a little maniacal laughter. His physical form was then unfortunately destroyed as a nearby mountain collapsed on him in a sudden avalanche – a mountain which was, as a matter of fact, a _previous_ business associate who, in an ironic twist, Grazsi had metamorphosed after he'd requested-"

"So who owns us now?" Edwyrd asked.

Libe'lgor, pretending not to hear him, continued,

"In order to cover the cost of his, ah, extensive legal fees, Grazsi's property was put up for auction, with missives sent out to likely buyers – for your team, for example, we placed an advertisement out in the Blood Bowl Bugle two months ago. And, eventually, having haggled and bargained and fought every inch of the way…well, my partner, Mr Slandri'gor, should be signing the contract this afternoon. So before too long, you'll be meeting your new owner."

"Who?" Edwyrd asked.

"Who?" said Fourtooth.


	8. Chapter 8

"'Oo?"

"We don't know yet," Edwyrd explained. "The lawyer said he couldn't give out any information until the contract's signed. But they're going to be our new owner, so all of us need to treat them with _respect, _and _deference_, and not _maim them_."

Badpipes opened his mouth to attempt the tricky art of speech once again.

"Nah," he said at last, struggling heroically over every dull syllable, jabbing out a stubby finger as he spoke. "'Oo yoo?"

"Oh," Edwyrd said, taken aback. "Well…I'm your coach."

Badpipes screwed up his face in confusion, then shook his head decisively.

"I've trained you for the past two years?" Edwyrd prompted. "Edwyrd Kettlebelly? I bought you out of the Burgomeister's gaol that time when you ate his horse-and-carriage? No? Nothing at all?"

Badpipes continued to stare at him without the slightest hint of recognition.

"Incredible," Edwyrd muttered, and turned back to the rest of the team, all of whom were squatting uncomfortably on the benches, their muscular shoulders pressing against the walls of the wooden shack that served as a locker room.

Their expressions ran the gamut; from confusion to befuddlement to lack of comprehension to Dok McKlowd, who'd spent that morning gathering and eating an interesting clump of bright green glowing mushrooms he'd found in the woods, and who was now giggling enthusiastically, rocking backwards and forwards in his seat, and pointing at nothing in particular.

"My point is," Edwyrd said, "that our new owner could turn up at any time. We have no idea who he or she is going to be. Which means that we're all going to have to keep an eye out. We're all going to have to - yes, Dik?"

Dik Der Cunnin' kept his heavily bandaged hand in the air.

"So yoo're sayin' dat der Ownah cood be in dis very room?" he asked, with a nervous glance to either side.

"Well, no," Edwyrd began, before conceding, hating himself as he did so, "I mean, they _could_ be, of course, that's just probability. But the chances of that happening are extremely-"

Flirksmasher spun around, lifting up Grobb by the throat, and roared,

"YOO'S DER OWNAH, GROBB? TELL ME DER TROOF, YA GROT!"

"Put him down, Flirk," Edwyrd insisted. "He's not the owner-"

"Dat's right," Wazguttle said, rising slowly, his fist raised. "_Yoo_ cood be der Ownah, Flirk. And ter think yoo tried ter blame Grobb fer it -"

"_Nobody's the owner_!" Edwyrd yelled, jumping up and down. "Sit down, all of you. The only bloody point I'm trying to make is that we need to play a much tighter game from now on. Solid play, plenty of touchdowns, clean tackling. No wandering off at halftime. No playing Dismember-The-Ref. No charging onto the other pitches on the green and joining in the games being played there by other teams, _Bob Blackteef_. Do we all understand one another?"

Bob lowered his head, shamefully. The rest of the Oldboyz shuffled their feet and gave each other embarrassed glances and muttered things like,

"S'ry kotch."

Edwyrd began to feel a little embarrassed.

"I just want him or her to see us at our best," he said, regaining control. "I want this new owner to see the team I've seen. The team I know you all can be if you just concentrate on what I've taught you."

"We got it, coach," Cressida said, from her perch on Badpipes' shoulder. She gave him a cheeky grin. "Play professional, play power, play proper. Starting now. We're going to go out there and take those dirty rodents apart."

Edwyrd smiled back.

"Speaking of which," he continued, "they've got a rat-ogre, so be careful. Don't charge forward without thinking. Pin their runners down. Cress, Grobb, watch for quick passes. Badpipes, if you catch any two of their more players in the same place, you sit on them. Good luck, everyone, and look after your boyz."

"And girlz-" Cressida added.

"Right, and girlz. 'Ere we go," he shouted, "'ere we go, 'ere we go…"

And, after a few seconds, the entire team joined in.

It was an old orc song, the oldest of orc songs. Every orc team in the Auld World sang it before they played. It had no variations, no beginning, and no end. Just that one line, expressing everything you needed to know. This is where we are, and that's where we're going. Stop us if you can. Stop us if you dare.

Wazguttle sang, his helmet clasped to his chest, eyes tightly closed, apparently deeply moved. Grobb mumbled underneath his breath, glancing shiftily from side to side; Edwyrd strongly suspected that he'd forgotten the words.

He had to break them off, fifteen verses later; left to their own devices, they'd have kept on singing into the first half.


	9. Chapter 9

In the highest seats of the stand, the commentators of Fester Match Special, winners of the '98 Sporting Entertainment Award For A Cabalvision Channel With Double-Digit Viewing Figures, were going live.

"Yes, it's a gorgeous morning here at Old Ghoul's Green as the Orctown Oldboyz take on the Eekster Chieftains. You're live with me, Tough Nell, and my constant commentary companion, Blue Earz. For the refreshing taste of Pilznah beer in your mouth all day long, try new Pilznah Breath Mints. 'Life's A Party – With Pilznah!'"

Tough Nell glanced across at the hunched, pestilent, furry figure beside her.

"You're an ex-Skaven player, Blue," she continued. "What do the Chieftains need to do to win this match?"

"Meet-meet the Oldboyz on their terms, Nell. They cannot hope-hope to match them physically, so they're going to have to run-run. Keep the ball moving, stay out of contact, maybe get involved with a poisoned dagger or two while the ref-ref isn't watching…"

"Prediction on the scoreline?"

"Too close-close to call. But the fans will be very, very unlucky if they don't see some horrible mauling-mauling and even maybe a touchdown."

"Here come the Chieftains now," Nell continued, "led by their captain, Scrit Shearclaw. And – oh, my, looks like they've been feeding up their rat ogre, uh, 'Deathkiller'. Some real imagination went into that name, eh, Blue?"

Little shapes in black-and-yellow robes were scurrying out across the field, below, their tails flicking in perfect rhythm as they went. Behind them, moaning dully and swiping at thin air with its enormous, twisted paws, was a hideous and horrifying abomination, eight feet high, the shattered remnants of blades and spears lodged in its hairless flesh.

Tough Nell regarded it critically.

"Did that always have two heads?" she asked.

"And the home crowd is up-up in their seats," Blue Earz shouted, "because here come the Oldboyz!"

"Team captain Wazguttle heading across to the referee to decide the coin toss there, as coach Edwyrd Kettlebelly takes his seat in the dugout…ah! And sections of the home crowd have started an all-out brawl with the away crowd. That should keep us all entertained in the tedious seconds before the match actually begins."

Edwyrd sat down, ignoring the habitual volley of projectiles and crossbow bolts from the opposition crowd that rattled harmlessly off the dugout wall behind him. He glanced across to the Skaven coach, a gaunt-looking human, who sat with his arms crossed, gnawing his own lip with apparent nervousness.

"Good luck to you," Edwyrd said, leaning over to shake his hand.

The human turned, and gave him a look of pure, whimpering terror.

"They're going to crucify me," he whispered.

Edwyrd frowned.

"Um…" he said. "I'm sorry?"

"The fans," the opposition coach moaned. "They say if I lose this match, they're going to crucify me. They've bought the nails and everything."

Edwyrd gazed into the human's sweat-laced, ashen face.

"I…hope you win, then," he managed.

The opposition coach shook his head weakly.

"If we win," he said, "then the_ players_ are going to burn me alive inside a giant wicker rat to celebrate the victory."

"Have they bought the giant wicker rat yet?" Fourtooth asked.

The human stared at him.

"Not yet," he mumbled. "They ordered it but it hasn't arrived yet and I think you have to assemble it yourself."

"Bloody postal service," Fourtooth said, nodding sympathetically. "I ordered some unicorn hooves from Middenheim once and it took ten days for them to arrive. Now _they're_ the ones who deserve to be ritually murdered. Am I right?"

Out on the pitch, the two teams were taking up their positions; in the centre, Wazguttle, having won the toss, requested that "we get der ball".

Flirksmasher glanced at his opposite number at the line of scrimmage, a black-furred ratman, almost as tall as a human, dressed in full metal armour adorned with spikes, chains and even a couple of skulls. The Stormvermin stared back at him, defiantly.

Flirksmasher leant over to him and whispered,

"Yoos got sumfink in yer teef."

The Skaven frowned.

"Yeah-yeah?" it hissed.

The referee, a tiny goblin painted all over in black-and-white stripes, glanced up at the sky for a moment, checking the position of the sun, before blowing his whistle.

Flirksmasher swung his arm around, hard. Blood jerked up into the air, and the Skaven went tumbling backwards.

He was lumbering halfway across the pitch before he remembered to quip.

"Yeah," he said, a little uncertainly. "Me fist."

He gazed at the fallen figure of the Stormvermin, twitching back by the line of scrimmage.

"Ahh, zog it," he muttered, kicking at the grass, and turned away just as the ball went flying over his head.

A spinning flurry of fur launched itself into the air; the rat-man snatched the ball up, mid-flight, and landed.

Dok McKlowd saw the Skaven runner dash forward into the Oldboyz' half, twisting beneath the legs of Bob Blackteef. His little face brightened, and he tugged down his pair of smoked-glass goggles. He felt backwards for the lever attached to the side of the jet-pack tied to his back.

He pulled it. A bubbling sound; fluid began to flow through the glass chambers and up into the sphere marked with a big red X.

He bent downwards, aiming his body vaguely in the direction of the fast-moving Skaven.

"Ter infinity," he declared, "an'…an'…an' sum uffa places too."

The ensuing explosion was quite a large one, and it drew an appreciative ripple of applause from the crowd.

Grobb and Luggen carried Dok McKlowd off the pitch. The little orc's face, bloodied, smoking, and coated in ash, was beaming.

"I mus' be flyin'," he murmured, "'cos I can see all der starz…"

"No, no," Fourtooth said, calmly, pipe in mouth, rummaging through his apothecary's bag. "Those stars are just the result of your frontal lobe melting. Hold still, now, I think I have a wet sponge in here somewhere."

On the pitch, both teams had taken advantage of the distraction and were now busy stamping on the heads of the fallen.

"Some good old-fashioned, meat-and-potatoes foul play there, Bluey," Tough Nell said into her microphone.

"It's got the crowd-crowd on their feet. And it looks as if we're going to be treated-treated to the Oldboyz fan-fan anthem."

In the highest end of the stand, a man with a silly little moustache and a blue-and-black scarf had, indeed, got to his feet. Clapping his hands high above his head, Frederick of Cinnabar, Secretary of the Official Orctown Oldboyz Fan Club, otherwise called 'Der Bonkers 'Orde', hollered aloud,

"Buddy, we're Oldboyz, make a big noise, burning down the street, gonna take on the Auld World some day!"

And the roar spread through the crowd, punctuated by a single, rhythmic clap,

"You got blood on your face, and that other guy's face – looks like you hit him too hard with that mace. Singin', WE WILL, WE WILL, BASH YOU. OI!"

The Oldboyz roared back, pounding their chests to signal their approval and raising their arms to the crowd in appreciation. Wazguttle had grabbed hold of a Skaven player by its tail and was whirling it around like a rattle.

"Concentrate!" Edwyrd screamed, from the dugout. "The ball! Focus on the ball! Grobb! Grobb!"

Grobb turned, hearing his name called, and gave Edwyrd a friendly wave.

"Don't look at me!" yelled Edwyrd, his frustration mounting. "The ball! The ball!"

Grobb shrugged, and raised a hand to his ear.

"Can't 'ear yooz, kotch," he mouthed, as a small rat-man in a long, trailing cloak dashed across his feet, the ball clutched in both hands.

The Gutter Runner streaked down into the Oldboyz' half, ducking easily past the flailing grasp of Badpipes. Then it made the mistake of glancing over its own shoulder to see if it was being followed.

Cressida kicked it in the face, studs-first, then tapped the ball up into the air, caught it, and began to run.

A Skaven player launched itself at her, screeching madly; she simply extended her free arm, raising the long iron spike attached to her elbow, and kept running until they collided.

The weight of impact knocked her over, tumbling forward, the little creature wailing as the spike drove itself into its shoulder. She hit the ground, but kept clinging on to the ball.

Tiny claws snatched hold of her wrist, digging in, trying to prise the ball away. Cressida cried out in pain, and kicked upwards with both of her knees. The Skaven squealed, and tumbled back.

She leapt up, ducking to avoid Wazguttle's enormous fist, which was swinging around violently at her attacker without a great deal of concern for her safety, and kept running. The grass tore up beneath her feet.

Dodging a flaming projectile being hurled at her from somewhere in the crowd, she tripped, stumbled, but kept herself upright, aware of the horrid hissing and click-clack of iron claws that suggested rat-men were close behind her.

As the end of the pitch came into focus, she gritted her teeth and pressed on, her legs aching, pounding away at the turf-

-and shrieked as a gigantic hand tore through the air and snatched her up.

Deathkiller, lifting the struggling human to eye-level, gave her a curious look. The rat-ogre licked at its raw, bloody lips, and turned Cressida about in its fist, trying to consider how best to fit her in its mouth.

Cressida closed her eyes.

_This is it_, she thought. _This is really it_.

_Sigmar's arse, I hope I give him runny-tummy._

And then from somewhere below, punctuated by the sound of thumping feet, growing louder, and louder, she heard a familiar, bellowing battle cry,

"WAAAAAAAAGH!"

She opened her eyes.

Luggen leapt.

He snatched on to the rat-ogre's wasted arm, clinging on around the elbow, kicking out with both legs. Deathkiller staggered, and snarled, lashing out at the orc with its free paw.

"Luggen," Cressida yelled, "take the ball! Let go of it and take the ball!"

She lifted it high, stamping her foot across Deathkiller's nose. Luggen, either unhearing or uninterested, was pounding experimentally at the rat-ogre's bicep with his great stumpy fingers.

"Waz," Cressida shouted, giving up. "Waz, take the ball - no, Waz, don't-"

"'EEEEEEEREEEEWEGOOOOO!"

Wazguttle took a running jump, launching himself up onto the great beast's arched back, and began to pound his fist into its skull. Deathkiller howled, straightening upright to try and dislodge at him, and took a step backwards.

Cressida caught sight of Badpipes, a dopey grin on the big troll's face, lumbering towards them with an implacable gathering momentum, his arms extended as if he wanted to hug everybody and everything in front of him.

"Oh, no," she muttered, trying to prise herself out of Deathkiller's grasp, "oh, Sigmar, Badpipes, don't-"

Badpipes crashed headlong into the flailing rat-ogre, his sinewy right arm knocking Luggen up into the air, and for a moment the two entwined monsters remained upright. Then Deathkiller's legs, buckling beneath the weight of the troll, began to give.

"Oooh," Cressida yelled, as she found herself being carried downwards in the rat-ogre's outstretched hand, "oooh, ooossshhhiii-"

There was a thump. And, a split second later, the unmistakable and rather nasty sound of bones snapping beneath a great body of pressure.

And as Deathkiller's hand spilled open, Cressida went tumbling out, ball still in hand, and fell, face-first, into the grass of the endzone. She gazed foggily at the blurred, spinning green vista stretching out before her.

Weakly, with a tired little groan, she stretched out her hand, and tapped the ball once against the ground. Then she fell over.

"TOUCHDOWN!" Tough Nell roared. "TOUCHDOWN TO THE ORCTOWN OLDBOYZ!"

The crowd erupted.

After a few moments of quiet, aching contemplation in which the world went a funny shade of white, Cressida pushed herself to her feet, staggering just a little from one direction to the next, and looked about for her teammates.

The team, as one, were gazing down at Deathkiller, who was lying perfectly still on the ground, its torso pressed down into the sunken earth of the endzone where Badpipes had landed on top of it.

"Fink it's dead?" Grobb asked.

Luggen raised his boot thoughtfully, and stamped four or five times on the rat-ogre's head.

"Dat oughta do it," he said, with a certain quiet satisfaction.


	10. Chapter 10

The stands had emptied.

The team sat, enjoying the dying sunshine from the bottom step of the dugout, and listened to the distant, agonising shrieks of the Eekster Chieftains coach, who was currently being crucified by his fans up on the hill overlooking the town.

"Now dat's insentif," said Dik Der Cunnin'.

"All right," Edwyrd said, strolling out towards them and flipping through his clipboard. "All right, boyz and girlz, just a few notes, and then you can head inside and hit the showers. The first-"

Fourtooth leant conspiratorially inward.

"Been meaning to talk to you about that," he said. "When you keep telling them to 'go and hit the showers'? They don't think it means the same thing you think it means."

Edwyrd frowned.

"Wait," he said. "Is that why the faucets are always broken?"

"It's also why they don't smell any better," said Fourtooth, lighting up his pipe.

Wazguttle, meanwhile, was grinning proudly, glancing back towards the rest of the team.

"Didya see us, kotch?" he asked. "Dem furries went frough our tunnel at der end, an' we clapped, an' we din't even kill dem! Not even one – jus' mangled one or two."

"Yes," Edwyrd said, genuinely pleased. "Yes, that was very impressive. In fact, well played, all of you. Your conduct was fine, even your fouls had a certain respectability to them – and that was an excellent touchdown, Cress. This is exactly the sort of thing our new owner's going to want to see. Now, let's talk about remembering to look for the ball-"

Fourtooth, gazing at something over Edwyrd's shoulder, gaped. His pipe went tumbling down out of his mouth, and clattered against the wood of the stands.

"Er…coach?" he ventured. "You're gonna want to see this." His voice took on a certain urgency. "_Before they do_."

Edwyrd turned to follow his outstretched finger.

Someone was walking towards them across Old Ghoul's Green. Although perhaps 'walking' wasn't really the term for a method of movement that managed to imply, with a fastidious lightness of pace and swiftness of stride, that the grass itself was something common and repulsive. That it was, in fact, insulting, even blasphemous, for one so high-born to walk on grass as vulgar and ill-bred as this.

The elf woman wore a plain traveller's cloak, which had been swept back on both sides in order to reveal the glistening white robe, punctuated by diamonds, silken threads and clear crystals, that lay beneath. Her sweeping, leonine blonde hair hung from either side across her enormous pointed ears. Her eyes were as cold and as shrill as ice.

"Edwyrd Kettlebelly, yes?" she called as she approached. "I am-"

Further introductions were cut off as she dived hurriedly to the ground to avoid being hit by the heavy wooden bench Flirksmasher had just thrown at her. The bench landed harmlessly in the grass of the green on its side, and stuck there at an angle.

"Stop it, Flirk!" Edwyrd snapped, spinning around. "I think she's the owner, she's the bloody new owner!"

Flirksmasher gazed blankly at him for a second, and then turned to lift up another bench.

"Flirk!" snarled Edwyrd. "Put the damn thing down!"

He turned, and dashed out across the grass towards the elf, who was slowly picking herself up while gazing with mild horror at the mud staining her gorgeous robes.

"I'm so sorry," Edwyrd said, breathlessly, as he reached her. "He didn't mean to – well, he did. But he thought you were just an elf, you know. Not that, er, that's any justifiable reason to have anything against elves, of course. Ha ha ha. Can I help you up?"

The elf, ignoring his proffered hand, pushed herself up onto her feet and snapped, as if it was something she'd learnt by rote,

"Edwyrd Kettlebelly, yes? My name is Princess Anyka Whistlewind Silverfoot Pridehorn of The Hunter's Emerald Tower." She gave him a slightly cross glance, before conceding, "and, yes, as you suggested to that brute behind you, I am indeed your team's new owner."

"Good ears," Edwyrd said, before adding, quickly, "I mean, er…sorry."

Anyka glared at him.

"I suppose," she said, nodding towards the stands, "that I should meet with the team now, yes? Before any more of them attempt to murder me, at least."

"Yes," said Edwyrd, quickly. "Yes, of course. Right this way."

He hurried after her, noting with slight concern that the Oldboyz had got to their feet. Worse, that a few of them had somehow found melee weapons in the stands in the past few seconds and were now testing the sharpness of the blades with their fingers while giggling to themselves in excited anticipation.

As the elf got close to the stands, she called out, in a loud, sharp voice that smacked of the classroom and made half of the orcs drop their weapons straight away,

"Orctown Oldboyz! My name is Princess Anyka Whistlewind Silverfoot Pridehorn of The Hunter's Emerald Tower. You there – waving the battleaxe at the back and shouting about 'loppin' 'er ears off good'. You are this team's captain?"

Wazguttle gave her an uncertain look.

"Yeah," he mumbled, with as much hostility as he could muster.

The corner of Anyka's mouth curved upwards, very slightly, into what an imaginative person might have described as a smile.

"Good," she said. "You played well today. Excellent attacking play. And which one of you is 'Bob Blackteef'?"

It took a second for Bob to remember.

"Oh," he said, raising a hand that still had a barbed pike clasped in it. "Dat me."

"Can you tell me why," Anyka asked, placing her hands on her hips, "at the very beginning of this season, you held a branding iron against the chest of one of_ this team's own fan_s until he suffered a fatal heart attack?"

Bob looked a little embarrassed.

"'E wanted me ter singe 'is shirt," he said.

"Sign," Edwyrd interjected. "He wanted you to sign his shirt. Miss…uh…Princess Silverwhistle, I have already disciplined Bob, so this really isn't necess-"

Anyka, ignoring him entirely, snapped, jabbing her finger towards the Oldboyz,

"All of you, listen closely! I know you better than you know yourselves! I have studied your player records. I have seen the replays. I know which of you are doing well by your team and which of you are letting down the side. I know which of you deserve a bonus and which of you will be getting a pay cut."

Grobb's mouth fell open.

"You ain't gonna dock our pebbles?" he whispered, crestfallen.

"You are a good team!" Anyka yelled. "You deserve to win championships! You have been rotting for too long out here in the provinces! That ends today!"

Behind her, Edwyrd brightened.

"Now," the elf continued, "I am going to have a long conversation with your coach, your captain, your apothecary and…which one of you is the little orc with the surprising ability to articulate coherent sentences in post-match interviews?"

"I…think that's me," Cressida said, raising her hand.

Anyka gave her a piercing stare.

"Yes," she said, after a moment. "Well, that would explain it. The coach, the captain, the apothecary, the runner and I are going to head back to my inn and discuss our team strategy for the duration of this session." She hesitated before adding, without a great deal of conviction, "And if the rest of you should be free to attend, I will gladly purchase a round of beverages for you all."

There was a moment of silence as the Oldboyz attempted a little mental translation.

And then, as if every one of the team, powered on by Gork or Mork or whoever it was that gave them their incredible unity of thought, had come to exactly the same conclusion at exactly the same time, a great collective howl of celebration, as old and as savage as the hills, echoed across the green,

"SHE BUYIN'!"


	11. Chapter 11

Edwyrd wrinkled his nose, and turned in his seat to gaze disapprovingly out across the beer garden. He'd never been particularly fond of Bugman's Arms, part of the powerful and ruthlessly homogenising tavern chain stretching across the Auld World. The walls inside were painted in bright tartan squares and festooned with balloons, and the landlord always greeted him with a cheerful smile and a cry of 'Hey, pal! How you doing there?' instead of with a suspicious grunt and the warding off of the evil eye. Worse, the Oldboyz always insisted on using the children's playground and the damages were a serious pain on his wallet.

And he'd even ordered the same drink as the new owner in a show of solidarity – a Silverfeather Soupcon, whatever that was – and the tiny measure of clear, translucent liquid standing in a cocktail glass before him was looking decidedly unappetising.

"So," he said, sliding the glass gently off to one side, "er, Princess Anyka…your plans for us?"

Anyka gave him a thin, slightly frosty smile.

"Indeed, Master Kettlebelly," she said. "My plans for you. Now…are we all paying attention?"

She glared for a second at Wazguttle, who kept glancing back over his shoulder towards the playground and sighing with a wistful longing.

"We are," Edwyrd said firmly. "We're all listening."

The cocktail glass was, irritatingly, still on the edge of his vision. He pushed it out a little further until he could no longer see it.

"The first order of the day," Anyka continued primly, "is to find a suitable cup for our team to enter. An event with good publicity, good viewing figures - but also one where we won't get beaten quite so horribly that we're forced to replace the dead. Fortunately, I believe I have already found a suitable candidate."

She slipped a small white card out from her sleeve and passed it to Edwyrd. He stared at it for a moment, and then handed it on to Cressida. She frowned, and then passed it to Fourtooth, who made a small vague noise of appreciation before giving it to Wazguttle, who was too busy thinking about the swings to pay any attention to it.

_Count Otto Vandryver presents: The Vandryver All-Star Charity Cup. Takes Place At Vandryver Keep, The Crag, Western Provinces of Sylvania. All Proceeds Will Go To The Otto Vandryver Foundation._

_Pool B: The Orctown Old-Boys. Show this card to the ushers upon arrival._

"A…charity gig?" Edwyrd asked.

From behind him, there was a long, drawn out howl of,

"WHHEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

followed by a crunch as Grobb got himself stuck in the slide.

Anyka nodded.

"It's going to be a huge event," she said. "For the novelty value and so on. Cabalvision coverage across every network. You've heard of Count Otto Vandryver?"

"Yeah, I think so," Fourtooth murmured, raising a grubby hand. "Wasn't he the vampire who cooked up all of those crooked tax schemes?"

"_This_ isn't a crooked tax scheme, is it?" Cressida asked, looking worried. "I mean…a charity cup? Because that wouldn't look good, would it, if we got ourselves mixed up in that sort of mess? Killing opposition players en masse is one thing, but the popular press doesn't take kindly to reckless financial investment."

"It is absolutely not a crooked tax scheme," Anyka said, patiently. "It's all clear and above board. The proceeds will be going to help necromancers in Sylvania whose hordes of the shambling undead were wiped out in the Great Imperial Purges Of The Damned last winter."

"It's always the innocents who suffer," Fourtooth said, shaking his head sombrely.

"However," Anyka continued, "the Count's most certainly a canny operator. He has chosen to stir up publicity for the event – and, presumably, bring in more money for his charity – by using his fortune and influence to bring together his own team of veteran vampire players. Lots of big names, plenty of counts and Sylvanian nobility. The idea is that he'll pit them against all comers. The Chaos All-Stars have already agreed to go for a one-off fee, as well as the Oldheim Ogres. And we'll be there to…you know…make up the numbers."

"It's a vanity project," Cressida murmured.

"Indeed it is," Anyka said, calmly. "But there'll be Cabalvision, all the big channels, the Jim and Bob show…" She steepled her fingers. "it's not enough for a team to simply play these days, you understand. You need to market yourself. You need PR. You have to synergise the players' public personae with accompanying advertising campaigns and associated press – the wider brand of the Oldboyz."

"Ah," Edwyrd said, with a sage nod that he hoped indicated he had the faintest clue what she was going on about.

"For instance, you," Anyka said, rounding on Cressida. "You are not an orc, and yet you play in an orc team. Why is that, exactly?"

Cressida looked a little taken aback.

"Well," she said, "er…they were having sign-ups last season, and the local human teams were all full or incapacitated, and Mr Kettlebelly said they needed a runner." She thought about it for a second, then added, "and a thrower. And a catcher. Basically, they needed someone to think about the ball while all the other players were hitting things. And I liked them." She smiled. "Still do."

"No, no," Anyka said, "you misunderstand me. I am not criticising your place in the team; I think it's extremely fortunate, in fact. The fact of the matter is this; market research shows quite clearly that a significant proportion of the Blood Bowl audience finds it difficult to empathise with eight-foot high green monsters with the intelligence of musk-rats. No offence, Captain."

"..._I's the king of der castle an' yooz der dirty rascal_..." Wazguttle muttered under his breath, eyes glazed over, his mind still clearly elsewhere.

"My point is," Anyka continued, "that if you go to the schoolyard, any schoolyard, you'll see children are pretending to be Dunk Hoffnungs or Griff Oberwalds. They're not pretending to be Oldboyz. To many viewers, young and old, orcs are still a joke team. Pantomime villains. Big dumb violent lugs who don't even know what the ball is for."

"They're not-" Cressida began. Anyka held up a conciliatory hand.

"They're…fine fellows," she said, "I'm sure. But they're not appealing to the mass market - and they're not exactly photogenic, either. They don't have the…star quality. Let me be candid," she added, with a conspiratorial smile. "The majority of adult sports fans tend to be sexually frustrated males within a tight-knit community of similarly-minded males, all of them stuck in an permanent state of misogynistic mental adolescence."

Edwyrd began to choke on his drink, then realised he wasn't drinking it.

"So we make you the star," Anyka continued, giving him a baffled look. "We capture that demographic by appealing directly to their sensibilities. My marketing manager will be coming in to discuss all this with you, but I imagine he'll want posters, giant cardboard cut-outs…"

"Oh," Cressida said, looking pleased. "Oh, wow."

"…and, of course, you'll probably want to show a little more flesh."

A look of sudden disappointment crept over Cressida's face. She gazed ruefully downwards at her armour. It was thick and filthy, stained with blood, and the blue-and-black paint concealed a great number of barbed nails which had been thoughtfully sewn into the leather, facing outwards.

"I know what you're thinking," Anyka said, taking a sip of her drink. "But you mustn't worry. Those can be enhanced magically. Now – I believe I also have to discuss with you the matter of the players' diet. Are they eating healthily?"

"Nah," Wazguttle rumbled, apparently just picking up on the conversation for the first time, "we's eatin' 'orses, mostly. Sumtime deer, an' pig, a few 'umies, an' sumtime elves."

A moment of thoughtful silence passed before he remembered to say,

"Not many elves, tho'. In fac', we 'ardly eva eat elves at all."

"I am very glad," Anyka said, prissily, "to hear it."

"Just ain't dat many of dem around."

"I have a new nutritional diet planned out for all of you," Anyka snapped. "No more fungus brew, no more 'umies…from now on, your food of choice is Father Stencheim's Wonder-Gut Energy Gruel. High in protein and fibre, low in fat and essential brain stimulants, it's the perfect meal for a Blood Bowl player."

She slipped the can out from under her sleeve and handed to Edwyrd, who stared at it in consternation.

"May cause rashes, epileptic fits, and all-body haemorrhoids," he murmured, straining to read the torrent of small print beside the picture of a jolly-looking Priest of Sigmar giving a big thumbs-up. "Do not take if you are pregnant or have plans to become pregnant in the years, months or weeks before your death. In case of ingestion, consult an apothecary-"

"The Reikland Reavers swear by it," Anyka said. "And, I do seem to recall, they're a team in the top ten rankings of all time, and we're a team whose only major trophy was runner-up in the Brackenhurt Swamp Most Violent Dismemberment Awards last season. Yes?"

"Dat was a magical evernin'," Wazguttle murmured, to nobody in particular.

Edwyrd held up his hands.

"She's right," he said. "You're right, Princess. We all need to listen to her from now on. We're the soldiers, she's the general. She knows what's best for us. Even if it doesn't necessarily seem appealing at first, we need to just...muck in and give it a go."

Anyka gave him a nod.

"Thank you for your vote of confidence," she said, and drained her drink. "Well, then…I will begin to make preparations for our departure. Sylvania is a wild and dangerous place, haunted by the roaming undead and vicious monsters beyond the comprehension of mortal man." She tilted her head thoughtfully to one side. "I think we shall need mittens, at least."


	12. Chapter 12

Luggen tilted thoughtfully back and forth. Beside him, a small child was waiting patiently to use the swings. He ignored it.

He'd always had exceptionally good hearing. And he'd been very interested, indeed, to hear that the team was headed to Sylvania.

It was old Basher the Smasher, back when he'd been playing with the Motley Horde, who'd told him the legends, which Basher said he'd heard from Tomolandry the Undying himself. The ancient, whispered tales that suggested that Blood Bowl was not a new sport, but one created in the dawns of time by the great god Nuffle, and only recently rediscovered. The stories that held that there were tombs, buried in the oldest places of the world - Khemri, Lustria, Sylvania - which held the mummified remains of prehistoric creatures that had once played the sport, and the various items of incredibly advanced technology which they'd used to defeat their opponents.

After all, Basher had said, these proto-orcs and proto-humans, these first inhabitants of the earth, had often had to play for the fate of civilisation itself, if the murals depicting a Blood Bowl match against a team of starfish-creatures which appeared to have descended from the stars themselves were anything to go by. So they needed good kit. Artifacts that any worthy player of good heroic stock could don, rendering them unstoppable on the field, which only existed today as myths and fables. The Sacred Cup Of The Lady. The Anabolic Steroids Of Annihilation. The Boots That Are Beauts.

And, Basher had concluded, once you knew where to find these artifacts, all you had to do was break into the corresponding tomb and steal them for yourself – assuming, of course, that you were stupid and thoughtless enough to delve into the unknown darkness, facing horrors from the earth's first light, probably going horribly mad in the process, all for the sake of material gain.

Luggen grinned, swinging back and forth through the air, lost in a dream of once and future glories.


End file.
